4. Fifty Shades of Black
We all know Fifty Shades of Grey is a joke. Well, unless you’re E.L. James. We’ve all laughed at its expense, poked fun at its poorly-written drivel or at least generally acknowledged its silliness. But nobody — and I mean, nobody — wanted, asked or needed Marlon Wayans’ for his take on the softcore porn romance. But here we are with Fifty Shades of Black, a feature-length parody designed to look at the smutty novel/film adaptation from the black perspective. And filled with Wayans’ flair for overbearing pop culture references, most of which are already outdated, screeching stereotypes, wacky faces, gross sex gags and complete lack of subtlety whatsoever, it might just be Wayans’ most unbearable contribution to film yet — which isn’t an easy feat at this point, especially after the godawful A Haunted House 2.
The one-joke premise would have felt haggard as a five-minute Funny or Die sketch, but as a 92-minute slog, it’s simply excruciating. Lead actress Kali Hawk is game for anything, but Wayans doesn’t know what to do with her — particularly as he’s desperately flopping around trying to make any of this material work. Later incorporating pointless pokes at great movies like Whiplash and Magic Mike whenever it has almost officially juiced out Fifty Shades of Grey for all it’s “worth,” it’s more aimless and patchy than usual for Wayans. The comedy is scattershot-at-best, it never really offers any original commentary about the source material and it mostly coasts by on the restating the same things everyone else has said about Fifty Shades of Grey, the film, at this point. Only Mike Epps, like a transient beckon of hope, offers any chuckles whatsoever, and his guest appearance is a fleeting five-minutes at most. There’s no black or grey about this one; it’s all the exact same shade of brown.
